Existing and proposed telecommunications networks and subnetwork, may operate in accordance with various standards, such as LTE, 4G, 5G, and 3GPP, to support diverse applications, such as live communication, entertainment media transmission, computer data transfer, and Internet-of-things (IoT), Web-of-things, and machine-to-machine (M2M) operations. Various standards include mechanisms for group operations such as multicast. See, e.g., 3GPP TR 22.891 Feasibility Study on New Services and Markets Technology Enablers (SMARTER); Stage 1 (Release 14) V-1.1.0; Recommendation ITU-R M.2083: IMT Vision—“Framework and overall objectives of the future development of IMT for 2020 and beyond” (September 2015); 3GPP TS 36.331 Radio Resource Control (RRC); Protocol specification (Release 13), V13.0.0; 3GPP TR 38.913 Study on Scenarios and Requirements for Next Generation Access Technologies; (Release 14), V0.2.0; 3GPP TS 36.304 User Equipment (UE) Procedures in Idle Mode (Release 13), V13.0.0; 3GPP 36.881 Study on Latency reduction techniques for LTE, V13.0.0; 3GPP R1-164694 Frame Structure Requirements, Qualcomm, May 2016; 3GPP R1-164628 Frame Structure for NR, Ericsson, May 2016; 3GPP R1-165363 On HARQ functionality for 5G, Nokia, May 2016; and 3GPP R1-164014 Discussion on RS for beamformed access, Samsung, May 2016.
In Long Term Evolution (LTE), multi-antenna techniques may be used to achieve improved system performance, including improved system capacity (more users per cell) and improved coverage (possibility for larger cells), as well as improved service provisioning (e.g. higher per-user data rates). The availability of multiple antennas at the transmitter and/or the receiver can be utilized in different ways to achieve different aims, for example via antenna diversity, antenna beamforming, and antenna spatial multiplexing.
In antenna diversity, multiple antennas at the transmitter and/or the receiver can be used to provide additional diversity against fading on the radio channel.
In antenna beamforming, multiple antennas at the transmitter and/or the receiver can be used to “shape” the overall antenna beam in a certain way—for example, to maximize the overall antenna gain in the direction of the target receiver or to suppress specific dominant interfering signals.
In antenna spatial multiplexing, the simultaneous availability of multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver can be used to create multiple parallel communication “channels” over the radio interface. This provides high data rates within a limited bandwidth, which is referred to as Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna processing.